Manther Attack!

I am on a date with a younger girl. A much younger girl. I am 51. She is 23. ‘This is fabulous!’ I say to myself, brimming with mojito-fuelled swagger. ‘You’re old enough to be her father! You’ve still got it, you old dog!’ Smiling, I turn my attention to the slender young thing in Vivienne Westwood perched on the Shoreditch banquette next to me. Somehow, the conversation turns from fashion to her family. Now she is talking about her father, an internet entrepreneur. Steeling myself for the digits that I know will be coming, I ask, ‘just out of interest’, exactly how old her dad is. He is 48. Three years younger than me. The 1970s funk music that had been hissing from the bar’s sound system so loudly suddenly drops to a low- volume breakdown. The room feels like it’s in pull-focus mode as I imagine all eyes turning judgmentally to me. Her mother, by the way, is 44.

I am a manther. A mature tomcat out on the prowl, looking for fresh female tail. And to be honest, it is not a great look. Why? The notion of a cougar, a forty-something female who dates much younger men, has a sisterly, fun-loving you-go-girl reputation. Cougars have their own sitcom (Cougar Town with Courteney Cox). Elle Macpherson and Madonna are portrayed as sublimely handsome carnivores with high sex drives, glossy manes and the kind of well-preserved, ashtanga-hard bodies that can kill men with a thigh clench. No species preys upon cougars in the wild.

But the manther is less well-loved. Here’s the Urban Dictionary definition: ‘Origin: the male form of a “cougar”, man + panther = manther. An older man who frequents bars, lounges and clubs, his age ranging from ten to 50 years older than his victim. Usually carries an unusually fat wallet, wears too much cologne, and dresses younger than his age. May use the terms “baby”, “sugar tits”, or other female defamation when trying to pursue his prey. Some manthers are extremely good-looking, stylish and somewhat gentlemanly. Others are old, drunken dirt balls with a lot of money and a feeling of self-entitlement.’ Yep. That’ll be me then.

But here’s the thing... it’s kinda fun being a manther. Young girls are lively, firm and uncomplicated. They are exhilarating, inconsequential company; vital, forward-thinking and emotionally gutsy. They like dancing, drinking and smoking, and discussing that abysmal Shantaram book. And, culturally, they know jack shit about anything pre-1998. I took a delicious 27-year-old Chelsea girl to The Wolseley for dinner earlier this year and told her I was excited to have tickets to see Kraftwerk at Tate Modern. ‘Why are they having a exhibition about sewing and basket-weaving at a modern art gallery?’ she asked.

It is very important never to be patronising and snarky about this kind of thing. Hold back with the history lesson, because your drearily pedantic knowledge of ‘old stuff’ will not play well. It is also essential that you listen to every-thing she says, no matter how annoying it might be. Nod in approval. Be sympathetic and understanding. Young girls exist only in their own immediately relevant world; a world far less fraught, emotionally charged and complex than yours, but never let on about that.

And anyway, a hoary old manther can learn important lessons from his perky companions. How to get hip to new technologies, like this texting thing, for instance. I never really SMSed until I joined the mantherhood, but I now know that it is the only way to communicate with girls called Storm and Zooey. (But middle-aged men who are overly active on Facebook are thought of as really rather sad.) Spontaneity is key. I send a text message just minutes after an initial encounter, mainly because I know she’ll probably forget she ever met me after half an hour. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that your texts should employ the youngsters’ vernacular. No acronyms, shorthand or emoticons. Make your words pithy, funny, grammatically correct and spell-checked. And be very careful who you are texting, obviously. Your friends’ daughters are off-limits. Ditto, your daughter’s friends. Needless to say, when your texts get you a date, a manther is expected to pay for everything and not drone on about work. A night out will start at £200. He may want to buy some Viagra off the internet, too. Just in case.

Of course, in showbusiness — a pickled-in-aspic young persons’ oeuvre where men in their mid-fifties are allowed to wear skinny jeans and Converse and get hair transplants — things are easier for the roaming manther. His lifestyle and the chasm-wide age gaps he pursues are applauded, not frowned upon. Philip Green’s daughter Chloe is 22 and currently dating J-Lo’s dinky ex-husband, singer Marc Anthony, 44; British model Suki Waterhouse, 20, is dating Bradley Cooper, 38; while Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, 65, is married to Sally Humphreys, 34… and reported to be ‘planning a family’. (Ronnie’s daughter Leah, fyi, is also 34.) How about Amanda Sheppard, 37 years younger than husband Bryan Ferry? And here’s Jack Nicholson chatting up Jennifer Lawrence, 54 years his junior, at the Oscars: ‘You look like an old girlfriend of mine,’ says Nicholson. ‘Oh really? Do I look like a new girlfriend?’ replies Jen. ‘I thought about it,’ says super-manther Jack. ‘I’ll be waiting,’ snaps back Jennifer. Cue showbiz laughter. Needless to say, this kind of manther banter doesn’t wash in the real world. I tried a Jack-esque move at a wedding a few weeks ago. With a bridesmaid. I got a severe dressing down from the best man, filthy looks from the girl’s mother and a slap in the face from the bride.

So just how young can a manther go? The widely accepted formula is to divide the man’s age by two and add ten. So, if he is 46, his hot date should be around 33. Which a manther may consider a tad ripe for his tastes. Certainly, manther maths doesn’t add up for Jeff Goldblum, 60, and his gymnast girlfriend Emilie Livingston, 30. Now, I know someone who used to hang out with Jeff. He’s a great guy, apparently. Dry-witted, intelligent. But also a tad deluded, it would seem. Once, while he and my pal were having a drink, serial manther Jeff mentioned his short marriage to the actress Geena Davis. ‘Wow. Geena,’ said Jeff, shaking his head, according to my friend. ‘Can you imagine just how old she must be now?’ Davis was born in 1956, Goldblum in 1952.

That’s the thing with manthers. We like to think that age is an option; that as we ‘improve’ with age, there will always be a rolling supply of those rare but sophisticated young girls who find older men attractive. Once they start talking babies and marriage, we move on to their even younger friends. That said, sometimes, inevitably, they will have to settle down, grow up and do the right thing. I have a friend, a recently reformed manther, who is 54. He has just had a baby daughter with a woman 25 years his junior. Aw, she’s lovely, I told him as the four of us had a pizza together a few weeks ago, the baby gurgling on my knee as I ate. ‘Yes, I know. But you know what the best thing is?’ said my pal, looking rather wistful. ‘I won’t have to pay for her wedding.’

*Not our hunter’s real name